Far From Zanarkand
by ReaderMike
Summary: Tidus awoke in the middle of Baaj Temple Ruins. What if the encounter with Sin did more than just take him from his home. What if there was more to him than even he believed. A tale of a young man far from home and the story of a lifetime. Yaoi.
1. Awakening

**Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy X, I'm merely playing with the characters and setting.**

**Alright, so recently I played through Final Fantasy X again, and a naughty little plot idea came to mind. It refused to go away. Every time I write for Diaspora I feel the need to write this one as well, so I'm going to do it.**

**-FFZ-**

**Chapter 1: Awakening**

He was cold. He could remembered that feeling. Cold, and wet and the ground beneath him was hard. Hard like stone. Where was he? He was having trouble remembering everything. There was a blitz ball game. He was the star player. The Zanarkand Abes. He was…winning. He'd hit someone so hard they flew right out of the arena and then…and then when he was in the middle of his signature move he saw it.

He opened his eyes with a start and abruptly pushed himself up. Zanarkand! Zanarkand was under attack! Looking around all he could see were stone ruins. In the distance was what looked like a temple that was half submerged. "W-where am I?"

Feeling around he felt the hilt of a sword. A sword…a gift from his father. But his father wasn't the one to gift it to him. No, that had been Auron. Auron! "Auron!" he called out, looking around, hoping against hope that his guardian was nearby. "Anybody? Heey!"

Silence. There wasn't anyone nearby. He was alone."Well first things first I guess I should head to that building, maybe I can find out where I am." He mused as he looked around, slipping the sword that Auron had given him onto his back, glad that the old warrior had given him a sheath as well instead of just the naked blade, and slipped into the water heading towards the temple. He was actually quite glad of his blitz ball training. The magic used in blitz ball made him resistant to the cold water that he found himself in. He bet that if he were just an average citizen he'd have died of hypothermia by now.

He swam towards a small outcropping of rock and stopped in confusion. Was it just him or was there some sort of blue thing there? Curious, he swam towards it and pulled himself out of the water to check it out. Confusion soon came to him as he read the wording, the lettering was the same but the words were incomprehensible. Was it written in some kind of code? There was a chest nearby. Curious, he moved over and checked it out. The chest had no lock, and opening it he found two hundred gil. "Now that's what I'm talking about," he said as he slipped the money into his pocket. At least this way he'd have some money to pay someone for passage off this rock. He doubted that his credit card was going to cut it.

"Okay so I'm either in some sort of abandoned military complex, or somebody really enjoys leaving cryptic clues everywhere," he mused as he slipped back into the water and began making headway towards the temple once more.

"Hey..another blue thing," he blinked and began to swim over. Maybe there might be another chest if he was lucky. Climbing out of the frigid water he shivered, he might be immune to cold water, but the cold air was an entirely different matter. Shaking himself a little, he made his way over to the sphere and picked it up. "What is this?" he said confused as he looked over the object. It was a sphere, that much he knew, so it had to hold some kind of information. Oh wait, there was something on the back. Flipping the sphere over he read it, it was some sort of language composition, but hovering his hand over it, he couldn't find any information imparted within. There were twenty six slots on it though, but all of them were empty.

"It's busted," he said with a frown. Still he put it in his pocket, rather happy he'd had a dimensional pocket installed on his Zanarkand Abes uniform. He'd keep the trinket for now, maybe it went with that coded message nearby, but it probably got damaged or the data was erased or something because it'd been abandoned here and left out in the open instead of in a chest or something. Speaking of chests, "Oh sweet another chest!" he said walking over the worn walkway. "Awesome, potions!" he grinned as he pocketed the concoctions. At least this way if he got hurt he had something to heal himself with.

With that done with, he got back into the water for the third time and began to make his way towards the larger set of ruins. He was careful to keep an eye out for any other chests or spheres, but didn't encounter anything. Glad to have finally made it he pulled himself out of the water and back onto dry land, hopefully, for the final time.

He was thoughtful as he continued to ascend the steps, making his way towards the largest structure of the ruins when his eyes alighted on something. "Oh thank the goddess!" he cried out as he ran towards it grinning like a loon. He'd found a Traveler's sphere! The network of transporters that allowed people to travel from place to place, provided that they'd been there once before. It was also extremely useful in teleporting directly to an airship, provided one was within range and was nearby. If he was lucky he might be able to use it to get back to Zanarkand.

Holding his hand atop the sphere he concentrated on his home, and frowned when the sphere did not light up to engulf him. "Damn," he cursed frowning. There were one of two possible things wrong with the sphere. Either he was out of range, a possibility provided there weren't enough spheres he'd visited before between this place and Zanarkand, or this sphere was not connected to the network, a definite possibility considering how abandoned the place was. There was nothing to do but to check out the rest of the temple. If he was lucky there might be some way out of here.

"Man this place is huge, I wonder what they used it for…I mean it feels like it was important or something," he said as he started walking up the narrow arches which apparently was what was left of the dome. He felt a little silly talking aloud by himself, but he was all alone here and something needed to break the oppressive and solemn atmosphere of the place. That and he was sure that if he stopped to think about Zanarkand he would cry, and crying wasn't something he needed to do right now. He had to stay strong.

"Maybe if I'm really lucky Auron got stuck here too…and then I could sock his face for ditching me." Now that was something that he couldn't wait to do. His damn guardian had just up and ditched him here in the middle of nowhere, though if Auron did get here first, he'd probably left to scout ahead and Tidus should've stayed behind. Well…he knew where Auron would've gone, the big damn building, so he was sure he'd meet up with his absent guardian there.

He continued to walk along the arch, taking note of the two submerged statues underneath him when he saw something darting around in the water. He paused to try and see what the hell it was when all of the sudden the floor underneath him gave way.

He screamed as he went down, though luckily it was a manly scream. When he finally got his bearings he noticed that he was surrounded. There were three fish thingies floating around him, with sharp teeth and fin-claw things. They were looking at him like he was dinner. He was doomed.

The sword! Drawing the red blade, he focused himself. He was a blitzer, he knew how to fight underwater. He could do this. He swam forward, feinting to the right before striking the fish monster on the left hard enough to make it burst into pyreflies. He grunted as a fish tackled him, sending him floating back, but thankfully it didn't draw any blood. Scowling he focused on it and quickly cut it apart.

He smirked as he looked at the last fish monster, prepared to send it to a similar fate when he heard a deep rumbling sound in the water. His eyes widened as a huge monstrous fiend came bursting through a damaged archway and bit into the fish-monster, tearing it in half and sending its bleeding carcass to the far wall where it burst into pyreflies. The massive monster with glowy tentacle things and more tentacles underneath it and two huge stone fins looked at him, well sort of. It didn't have eyes.

"Whoa!" He swam as quick as he could to the surface. He had to figure a way out of here. He didn't want to become weird squid-cage-tentacle-thing's lunch. He looked frantically around and spotted a doorway that was just big enough for him and not large enough for the monster. Perfect!

He swam as fast as he could towards it, the monster just right behind him. Holy crap he wasn't going to make it. It was getting closer closer…it's mouth was starting to surround him. Come on come on. He couldn't die like this, in some goddess forsaken ruin in the middle of nowhere! Damn it, it was sucking him in! Cheating bastard!

BOOM!

The monster thing got caught in the doorway and the rushing water sent Tidus floating far faster than he would've liked, slamming into the wall and losing his breath as the doorway collapsed on the creature. Served it right. Nobody was going to get Tidus the son of Jecht for lunch!

Groaning he pulled himself out of the water and looked at his injuries. It was already starting to bruise and there were scratches from where it's claw had hit him. He didn't have a choice, he'd have to use one of his two potions. He uncorked the bottle and took a moment to fortify himself before he downed the whole foul tasting concoction.

He shuddered as the potion took effect, accelerating his healing and taking care of the damage. If only he knew healing magic, he wouldn't have to depend on a finite potion store. He stood up and looked around, deciding to ascend the stairs and find out just where he ended up.

He frowned when he reached the top of the stairs, it looked like someone had blasted through here, and had let the place collapse behind him. Still it was loose enough that with just a few nudges he made it through.

He blinked as he looked around in what looked like some sort of atrium, filled with statues and at least two stories high. Like the rest of the place, it was a ruin and he shivered. "Cold…need fire," he said as he looked around, eyes widening when he caught sight of something. There was what remained of a camp fire, meaning someone had been here not too long ago, and not just that, the ashes were a little warm. Maybe, if he started up another fire he could wait here for them to come back.

"Auron! Are you here?" he called out, and waited a few seconds for a response. When there wasn't one, he just shrugged and expected the remains of the fire. He could use the logs there to restart it, he just had to get a fire going again. He needed some flint, and some kindling and he'd be set.

He went over to check the plants in the pots nearby and found that they were all wet. This was going to be a lot harder than he thought. Still he couldn't give up, he just had to look farther away. With that thought settled he went through the northern door and started to ascend the steps. As he passed several alcoves with empty pots he found one that still had some dead flowers in it. "Perfect," he said grabbing them and putting them into his dimensional pocket.

He moved to the second floor looking for flint, but all he found was more debris, that and a chest containing a hi-potion. It was nice to know that if he got badly hurt, he could heal himself, that is if he didn't get knocked out. He went back to the main chamber and began moving to the other doorway, though he spotted a Traveler's sphere nearby. Checking it out, he found it connected to the one outside, but couldn't extend its range any further, meaning this area was remote enough that he wasn't going to get to Zanarkand anytime soon.

He went into the room, which was flooding just a little bit, and noticed a desk lying on one side. He checked the drawers and couldn't believe his luck. He found some flint! Grinning he collected the flint and headed back to the campfire, quite happy to start a nice roaring fire.

Now that he was warm, he noticed something else. He was starving. "I need food," he complained as he lay back, wishing that the person or people who had used this camp before had left food behind. His exhaustion eventually caught up with him and he drifted off to sleep.

**-FFZ-**

_Strong arms held him firmly, making him feel warm and safe. It was nice, being able to lay on a couch like this, with a man whom he was greatly starting to adore at his back. "Now come on, tell me the real reason why you're here," he said a smile on his face as he idly played with the man's fingers._

"_Well you'll think it's silly," the redheaded man said with a sheepish smile._

"_Come on, I swear I won't laugh."_

"_Auron said that you'd need me today," he admitted._

"_Huh?"_

"_It's been ten years, he thought you'd be crying."_

_Tidus smiled at the man and cuddled closer. "How can I? With you to cheer me up?" he asked._

_A figure of a small boy covered in pyreflies and somewhat transparent stepped forward and interjected. "You cried." Tidus scowled. He really didn't like that boy._

_**-**_**FFZ-**

He felt the chill in the air when he awoke, sitting up he was momentarily confused. Who had that redheaded man been? He knew that the man was somehow very important to him, but for some reason he couldn't recall his face correctly, or even his name.

Then his eyes widened as he realized why he felt so chilled. His fire was dying out! "No please, don't go out on me! I'll get you more wood I promise!" he said as he hastily got up to fetch more wood for his dying fire when he saw it.

There was some sort of creature up in the rafters. It roared at him and made a stunning display of running along the walls on its bladed feet before it jumped down to confront him.

This thing was intense, it moved so fast, striking at him with its claws and he barely blocked them in time with his sword. He danced around the beast, jumping in to attack it, and quickly moving out of the way, trying to keep it at the center of the ruin, rather than letting it run all over the place. It moved so fast!

Then when he and the beast where in a stalemate, he holding up his blade to stop the beast's claws from rending him to pieces, and the beast putting its full weight to bear on his sword, it happened. One of the nearby doorways, one that he hadn't tried earlier, exploded.

There were people there, four men in weird attire, dressed more like armored scuba divers or something and then there was a girl. The way she stood before the men meant that she was the leader or something. Their guns were trained on the enemy, two of the men had rifles and two others carried flame throwers. The girl strapped some sort of claw onto her wrist and moved forward in surprising speed, punching the creature so that it retreated and took on an offensive stance beside him.

"So you're here to help me? Great!" he said as he readied his sword.

The girl nodded to him and pulled something out of the pouch at her side, a grin spreading across her features. When the creature righted itself and made to move against them, she tossed it and he soon realized what it was she threw. It was a grenade!

The creature was badly burned by the attack and he moved in quickly to strike at it once more and made it out of dodge as she tossed a second grenade at the beast, the damage dealt was enough to finally put it down.

Exhausted, Tidus fell to his knees panting. "That was…good work guys," he said with a smile when one of the men came over, the man grasped his hair tightly and pulled him to his feet.

"Fryd syhhan uv lnaydina ec drec?" What? Where they speaking in code?

"Ed'c y veaht eh dra kieca uv y risyh!" A blade was pressed against his throat, he gulped. This wasn't looking good at all.

"Fyed! Ra ec hud y veaht!" The girl interjected, and the man holding the blade turned it towards her as if explaining something.

"Drao yna dra cysa eh taydr" the man with the blade said before putting it at Tidus' throat once more. He hoped to the goddess that the girl could convince them not to do what they were threatening to do.

"Cdub! E vunpet ed." The girl said with more force and the man with the blade put it away.

"Drah fryd crymm fa tu fedr res?" the man asked.

"Fa'ss dyga res fedr ic," she stated and the others looked at her dubiously before she stepped toward Tidus. He thought she looked rather apologetic and then she spoke softly. "Cunno," she said softly before slamming her armored gauntlet into his solar plexus. Tidus gasped for a moment before everything went black.

**-FFZ-**

**Whomever translates the following word gets kudos, also ask questions people. I love answering them either in PM or in the next chapter.**

**Cibanlymevnykemecdelaqbeymytuleuic**


	2. ABS Gelnika

**Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy X, I'm merely playing with the characters and setting.**

**-FFZ-**

**Chapter 2: **_**ABS Gelnika**_

Ugh, where was he? He remembered waking up alone in the ruins. Couldn't find Auron, but had found a camp and had started a fire to wait for whoever was there. Then there was that monster, he shivered at the thought. Fiends were rare in Zanarkand, they rarely made it passed the patrols so when one did make it into the city it was always a big deal. Then there was the girl! She and those other guys had come to help him, or so he thought. They spoke a funny language so he was obviously in a foreign land. Sitting up he blinked as he saw two of the men pointing guns at him, he was on a metal surface. Was he on their ship?

He tried to stand up. "Ced tufh!" one of the men shouted, shoving him back down to the ground. He scowled as he looked up at them.

It was then that the person who looked to be the leader stepped out onto the deck. He had blond hair that he wore in a Mohawk, wore nothing but gloves and suspenders, and had very elaborate tattoos on his chest and arms. "Caynlr res!" the man ordered and one of the guards pulled Tidus to his feet, and immediately started rifling through his pockets.

"H-hey!"

The found his potion, hi-potion, the small amount of gil he'd found, and the compilation spear. The girl seemed to eagerly snatch at the sphere and looked it over, turning it over to check the slotted side.

"Oui femm aynh ouin gaab uh drec jaccam. Tu oui ihtancdyht?"

"Whatever," Tidus said looking at the man confused.

"Ehcumahla!" One of the guards shouted striking Tidus in the back of the head.

"Ow! That hurt!"

The leader started to make grunting sounds and miming swimming, while holding out and pointing to a pair of goggles. What the hell did goggles and swimming have to do with his current predicament. "I said I don't understand."

"Tu oui dnimo hud cbayg?"

"What?"

"Ra tuach'd ihtancdyht. Rec compilation sphere ec asbdo!" the girl interjected, showing the leader the empty compilation sphere. Huh he actually understood two words of that sentence.

"Rikku, oui taym fedr res drah."

The girl nodded and then looked to Tidus. "He said you can stay if you make yourself useful."

"You can understand me?" and when the other guard moved to strike him again. "Okay okay I'll work!"

The guards let him go and moved off to stand with the leader guy. Huh, there was a travel sphere over by the door, maybe he could use it? Nah, he didn't think these guys would let him, and besides he had no idea where he was at the moment. "So what are we doing?"

"Salvage, there's an old machina underneath us. We're going to swim down there and check it out. Here you might need these," she said holding out a pair of goggles.

"Umm..no thanks I know the spells that'll help me see underwater."

"The goggles can scan the fiends we encounter underwater," she explained.

"Oh, well I'll definitely take them then," he said accepting the goggles and donning them. They weren't his thing, but hey it would let him learn the best way to beat the underwater fiends they might encounter.

"Oh and another thing, you seemed to have lost your sphere grid, but we've got a spare, so we don't mind letting you use it."

"Sphere grid?" he looked at her a bit confused. He knew it sounded familiar, but it was like he'd forgotten something.

The girl looked perplexed for a moment before she moved closer so she could explain it to him. "The sphere grid let's you learn abilities and talents from the past," she explained. "As you gain experience, it'll let you move farther on the grid, unlocking talents and abilities you didn't have before. I don't think it's been done, but it's been rumored that very powerful Guardians and Maesters have maxed out grids," she then went on to show him all of its nifty uses. It was amazing that you could power yourself up beyond your own natural abilities just by using a sphere grid. "Now why don't you play with it for a bit and come find me when you're ready to go."

Tidus nodded and fiddled with the device a little more before feeling confident enough to stash the grid away. He then thought to take a moment to talk to some of the crew, but none of them could really understand him. One guy just handed him three potions and muttered something, but hey having potions was a good thing in case he or the girl got hurt.

He made sure to check out the Traveler's Sphere, and to his luck he managed to find something that would fit into the slots of his Compilation Sphere. He was astounded that the Sphere was supposed to help him understand, or rather decode, the language that the people were speaking. He'd have to ask the girl later if there were more of these premiers around so he could finally understand the language.

"Hey you ready?"

"Yeah, let's go!" Tidus said as he jumped onto the railing, giving the girl a thumbs up before jumping into the freezing water. The impact was the only time he felt the chill, and something he had trained extensively for, before his body activated the spells he needed to be comfortable in any body of water for any prolonged amount of time. He'd gotten so good at them that he didn't even need to consciously do it.

It was cold, and fairly dark. Not that he had any problems with that since he could see clearly. The girl was already swimming ahead, following the chain of the ship's anchors, or were they tethers? He followed after her. They came across weird fish monsters here and there, but they were kind of easy to dispatch. He hadn't even needed to pull out any of their potions. The Scanner called them Piranha, but that was weird. He thought Piranha only lived in fresh water? Then again these were fiends so they probably didn't follow normal animal patterns. Plus it was weird that the girl could steal grenades from them, so maybe they were victims of some naval battle or something.

As they swam deeper he made sure to activate the anti-pressure spells so that he wouldn't be crushed by the mounting pressure. He noticed that there was some sort of building that they were making their way towards. That was odd, since the structure looked like something he recognized. Was this a hangar? Did that mean that they were searching for an airship or something? Now that would be pretty cool. Maybe if he hung around these guys long enough, he might be able to bum a ride on their ship, or on the airship and head back home.

He was worried sick about the people he had left behind in Zanarkand. What had happened to his team? To his friends? To that man in his dreams? What about Auron? Eh, he was sure Auron was fine. Nothing could kill that grizzled old warrior. Blinking, he stopped his musings as he followed the girl into one of the broken windows. He noticed a display that was powered, that was pretty cool. This station still had power despite being underwater for years, making it a marvel of engineering. There was also a Traveler's Sphere that he made sure to connect. It would make it a lot easier for the divers to teleport from here to their ship as they worked on the wreck. Though maybe one of the divers had brought it down some time ago?

Shrugging, he made his way to the panel and started to press a few buttons. It seemed that the main power grid was offline, damage to the main reactor or something. It was going to need repairs. Still if he could just get the door open. He tapped a few keys and tried a few bypasses that someone had taught him. Who had taught him bypasses? He hadn't learned this in….what school did he go to? Shaking his head he focused on the task at hand and finally succeeded in opening the door.

The girl motioned to swim ahead, and he nodding, followed her. They swam down a corridor heading towards the reactor room when they were ambushed by a large pack of Piranhas. They weren't much of a big deal, just a swing of his sword or a strike from Rikku's gauntlet put them down. All they had were numbers on their side, and really numbers really didn't mean much when you had someone as awesome as Tidus on your side.

With the Piranhas disintegrating into pyreflies behind them, Tidus and the girl swam over to the damaged reactor. Tidus could see that the divers had been slowly repairing it, and that it only need a few more touches in order to fully repair the machine. All he had to do was reconnect a few wires, plug in certain things, and give it a good smack or two and it was running again.

Grinning, he and the girl started making their way back to the main room when he felt the entire corridor jerk. What the blazes had done that? With trepidation, he started to swim back to the other main room when he came face to face with it. It was some sort of armored squid monster, quite different than the stupid glowy-cage-tentacle thing that had tried to eat him before, but a squid monster nonetheless. The scanner dubbed it Tros.

Then things got serious. Tros proved to be far from the chump change that the Piranha were. His tentacle attacks were quite biting, but Tidus managed to dodge them. He had to move in to swing at the creature with his sword, and the girl always helped by lobbing grenades at it when he was clear. It was then that Tros proved its cunning as it swam to the other side of the room, out of their attack range.

Scowling, Tidus had no choice but to wait for it to come back, at least getting a bit of rest from the constant barrage of attacks when the damn thing used some sort of jet or something to come charging into them, smashing into Tidus and sending him into the far wall. Damn that hurt! He briefly considered using a potion, but thought against it and went back into the battle, managing to deal massive damage before the girl somehow decided to steal his thunder and threw some sort of grenade attack. Apparently the girl was an alchemist and knew how to combine two grenades to create a Flash Flood effect. He had no idea how mixing two fire based grenades somehow came up with a water attack, but hey he wasn't the Alchemist. Plus he found it hilarious that Tros, a creature that lived underwater, had no resistance to water attacks. How silly was that?

Now that the creature was bursting into pyreflies, he and the girl exited through the hole that the creature had apparently busted in with. The lights of the hangar had activated, shining down on a vessel that was still in dock. Holy crap did they manage to find an experimental weapon development facility and discover a long forgotten prototype airship? Talk about lucky!

After the girl and the other divers checked the ship over for another twenty minutes, they decided to pile into that first room with the Traveler's Sphere and use it to teleport themselves back onto the deck of the ship. Tidus had no complaints about using the shortcut. He was beat, and didn't feel like swimming up a hundred feet or so. It also appeared that all of them were familiar enough with pressure magic to ensure that their organs didn't burst or anything after going from the pressure down there to being on deck again.

"Dra naluntc fana nekrd! Fa vuiht yh Airship!" One of the men that had been holding a flamethrower said as they walked towards the hatch that led to the rest of the ship. Hey Tidus had understood the last word, so he was right about there being an airship down there. Although he also got that the y was actually an a, but because of how scrambling the letters changed the speech patterns, he still got nothing out of anything the guys were saying.

"Oac pid huf dra xiacdeuh ec ruf du nyeca ed?" the guy with the rifle and bayonet responded as they continued to walk. Tidus was happy to just walk behind them, but one of them shoved him back, so that he couldn't enter the ship.

"Hey I helped out didn't I!" he shouted even as they closed the door on him. That was totally unfair, and he didn't care if they threw him off later, he was totally not going to help them again if this was the thanks he was going to get for it.

Hours later he was not sulking, okay maybe just a little. He had been left out there on his own the entire time with nothing but the crates as company.

"Hey, I brought you some food," the girl said dropping a plate of food in front of him, it happened so fast that the girl had managed to startle him.

"Alright!" he said as he started to gulp down the food, he was so hungry. The last time he'd eaten was…right before Sin's attack on Zanarkand, that morning. He skipped lunch because he'd been afraid he'd puke during the game because he was so stressed. But then something got caught in his throat and he was desperately searching for anything, water! Somebody get him some water or he was going to die!

"Hey!" the girl said as she tossed him a canteen and he gratefully drank it all down, dislodging the bit that got stuck in his throat. "It's because you eat too fast."

He couldn't help it, he started to laugh. He didn't care that the girl looked at him like he was crazy, he was just so happy that there was someone that could understand him, and that for once he didn't have to worry about monsters, or where he was or anything like that.

"Hello there, my name is Tidus. What's your name?"

"Rikku," the girl, Rikku, responded while looking at him as if she didn't know exactly what to do with him.

"So you do understand me! Why didn't you say so before?" he asked. He could've avoided a lot of knocks to the noggin back when those guys were trying to interrogate him if this girl had done the talking instead.

"I didn't get a chance to. They thought oui where a friend," she said holding up her arms defensively.

"Uh…we?"

"Oh. Oui means you in Al Bhed."

"Al Bhed?"

"The language of the other guys were speaking. You're on an Al Bhed ship. Oh no, you're not an Al Bhed hater are you?"

"I don't even know what an Al Bhed is." Tidus stated firmly.

"Don't know what an Al Bhed is? Okay….look we Al Bhed unearth and unlock the secrets of the pass. Something that the Yevonites don't want happening. So we've got a bad reputation for meddling in things the church says we shouldn't. What sort of rock were you living under?"

"Hey I was living in Zanarkand," he responded hotly. Seeing the confusion in her eyes he extrapolated. "You know, I was kind of famous. I played Blitz Ball and everything. The Star Player of the Zanarkand Abes?"

She moved over to the railing, still watching him in confusion. "Zanarkand was destroyed a thousand years ago, so nobody plays Blitz Ball there," she said to the man.

"What do you mean? I was just there. Sin attacked and I was washed out to sea. I mean, being a Blitz Ball player I can last underwater for a while so I probably drifted quite aways, but it was still standing!"

"You were near Sin," she said as if that seemed to explain everything.

"So what does that have to do with anything?"

"Sin's Toxin does weird things to the mind. I'm not saying that you didn't play Blitz Ball or anything, but you know it could all be an illusion or something," she said as she seemed to think about it for a moment. "Alright I'll help you. Look, you play Blitz Ball right? If we go to Luca there's a Blitz Ball tournament going to happen soon, and maybe someone will notice you there right? That way we'll know for sure if you're from Zanarkand or if you're just loopy from what Sin did to you…oh but if you come across other people you shouldn't say that you were from Zanarkand. Yevon says it's a holy place."

"I…" Tidus trailed off. Rikku could be right. He did have trouble remembering certain things, like the redheaded man's face, or even his name. He couldn't remember much from when his dad disappeared up to the game itself, and well it might actually be true. Maybe he should go to Luca and see if anybody recognized him, if nobody did then Zanarkand was real, if someone did, than he was just delusional? Oh god what if everything he believed about himself was an illusion? This couldn't be right, no this was wrong. His life wasn't an illusion! It wasn't! In frustration he kicked one of the creates and all of a sudden the deck lurched. He was about to apologize before one of the other Al Bhed ran to the railing screaming Sin!

That got everyone up and about scrambling about the ship. One of the men shouted, holding a gun, the other said something and pointed downwards, oh crap did that mean the giant monster was underneath them? The ship lurched again and a large wave hit it, water spraying everyone and Tidus lost his footing, being swept away by the water.

He could hear Rikku calling out for him, but he was trapped in a vortex. He just had half a mind to talk a deep breath before he was pulled under. Everything was moving so fast, and then he hit something and promptly blacked out.

**-FFZ-**

**Whomever translates the following words gets kudos, also ask questions people. I love answering them either in PM or in the next chapter.**

**E's fymgehk uh cihcreha**


End file.
